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Restatement 1st of Summer Associates

It's been done before. But I figure the complete meltdown of the legal market warrants a new look into the topic of how/what to do as a summer associate. These are just my off-the-cuff thoughts and not authoritative for any firm for reasons that should be obvious.

1. Produce the best possible work-product that you can. I think the era of letting summer associates with sub-par work-product slide into an offer is over. What should you do? Think, organize, and proofread about a million times. And when you are done, do it again.

2. Don't waste the client's/firm's resources. Sure everyone is inefficient when it comes to billing when they first start. But the chances that your work will actually be billed to the client is slightly higher (although there are also competing reasons why your work may not be billed, e.g., showing the client good will by writing off the time billed by a summer on a time-consuming research project). More importantly, your Lexis/Westlaw usage is not written off. Someone has to pay for it. Be weary of such phrases as "free" and "already paid for" coming from the mouths of the respective account reps. Again, someone always pays for it. I suggest learning and using cost-efficient research methods.

3. When in doubt, ask. This applies to your entire career path. Nearly all disasters in this profession occur because someone assumed. [Insert token Under Siege 2: Dark Territory quote].

4. From the thread I linked above, famed Boaltess Stacita remarked: "don't blow your offer by blowing anything else." Again, self-explanatory. Your character and reputation are far too valuable. Don't let booze bring you down. On the other hand, if your character shows its true colors after a few drinks, by all means, indulge. I'd rather know who to avoid ahead of time.

5. Judging by ATL threads, most firms are cutting back on summer spending. Do not go into your summer associateship with any sense of entitlement. The positive of this rule is to take advantage of the events that your firm puts on.

6. Treat every staff member like you'd treat a corner office partner. This rule again applies throughout your career. The reasons are easy enough: a) staffers have their ears close to the ground, avoid being a story b) they will save your butt when you have a pressing deadline and 1,000 pages to duplicate for that filing. Anecdotally, something as simple as a cup of coffee for a staffer who did a great job of preparing something for me got tremendous mileage.

These are the big ones in my mind. Feel free to add your own.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on May 13, 2009 (boomark / email).